Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Wednesday raised concerns over the billing practices of DSTV in Nigeria, questioning why subscribers continue to lose their subscription days even when the service is not in use.
Speaking during plenary session, Akpabio said, “DSTV in South Africa, if you travel for one month, two months, three months, your card will not run.”
“Your money remains until you come and activate it. But in Nigeria, once you pay, if you travel for one week, two weeks, by the time you come back it has gone down,” he said.
He added, “So they are charging you on a daily basis even when it is not in use.”
The Senate President said the situation was unfair to Nigerians, especially families who travel for holidays only to return and find that their subscriptions had been exhausted.
Comparing it with electricity billing, Akpabio said, “The same way we are paying for power that we are not using. You go to communities, their transformer has stopped working one year ago, but the people are still getting bills on a monthly basis.”
He further stated, “The same way you’re not using DStv, you have travelled for holiday with your family, by the time you come back everything has been consumed, but it doesn’t happen in South Africa where they come from.”
Akpabio called on the appropriate communications committee chairman to invite DSTV for explanations, insisting that Nigerians should not be made to pay for services they are not using.
“Which chairman is in charge of communication, please, we need to invite DSTV I just remembered it,” he said.
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